October 13 Wednesday – Bill paid to Arnold, Constable Co., of New York, importers of silks, linens, etc. for $177.50 [MTP].

October 12 Tuesday – Sam and Livy continued on to New York, staying at the St. James Hotel [MTL 6: 555-7]. They spent the next few days shopping [560].

October 11 Monday – In Hartford Sam replied to the Oct. 9 from James G. Blaine about the fraud, George Vaughan. Sam was now impassioned; the fact that Vaughan had written a “marvelously foul & scurrilous letter to the Courant in reply” set Sam off [MTL 6: 552].

Dr. John Brown wrote from Edinburgh, Scotland:

October 10–31 Sunday 1875? – Sam wrote a short note to Samuel H. Church about twins “born at the same time but of different mothers” [MTL 6: 551].

October 9 Saturday – James G. Blaine (1830-1893) replied to Clemens, who had written asking Blaine to verity his endorsement of George Vaughn (“a fraud”)

Jubes renovare infandum dolorem / O Clementia!!

October 8 Friday – Phineas T. Barnum wrote to Sam: “I recd your telegram yesterday & write you that even one day would be beter than nothing. I hoped you would come early next Monday…” [MTP].

October 7 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to John C. Underwood. Sam identified the “professor” who’d fraudulently solicited funds for a “southern school” as George Vaughan, and asked Underwood to endorse him. Unfortunately, Underwood, a district court judge, was deceased, as was another on Vaughan’s list he showed to Sam [MTL 6: 550].

October 6 Wednesday – Sam and Livy attended “Our Big Wedding,” the marriage of Governor Jewell’s daughter Josephine to Arthur M. Dodge of New York. Joe Twichell pasted a clipping by that title from the Hartford Courant into his journal. The wedding was at Asylum Hill Congregational [Yale 126]. Andrews gives details:

October 5 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Jesse Madison Leathers, a distant relative who had inquired about the feasibility of claiming part of the English Durham estate. Citing the cost that the Tichborne claimants spent unsuccessfully, and the 600 plus years the present heirs had held the lands, Sam wrote “It would be too much like taking Gibraltar with blank cartridges” [MTL 6: 545-6].

October 2 Saturday – Phineas T. Barnum wrote to Sam that conflicts wouldn’t allow Sam’s visit the next Saturday [MTP].